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Max glanced at Malakai, seeing nothing of the Reaper’s face but the colors of his aura, like threads of glowing yarn outlining his features. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve never heard of their masks? They’re made of this crazy-expensive shit that lets a person’s aura enter the mask, so Darkslayers can go looking for a messenger instead of waiting for one to come to them. Yveswich has way too many messengers and not enough Darkslayers, so they handle their jobs differently. Messengers aren’t supposed to approach Darkslayers, they’re supposed to wait for one to come to them.” The way Malakai said it suggested he’d prefer it worked that way in Angelthene too.
Dominic said, “How do you know that?”
“I’ve been to the city before, and a couple of my friends worked for Cerise Brinton years ago.”
“The Wyverns,” Dominic said.
“Cerise is a cunt. They don’t work for her anymore.”
The tunnels continued for what felt like a long time. Some led all the way outside the gates, but most zigzagged through the property of Angelthene Academy. No matter how many tunnels they walked, however, they never found anything interesting.
Until they wound up in a circular room with a bunch of old candles cluttered upon a stone ledge at the far end. Taped above the ledge were grainy, black-and-white photographs.
Dallas pointed the flashlight at the ceiling. “Where are we?”
Max looked up with his Sight. “Below an old building, by the looks of it.” A spell-protected one, surrounded by chainlink fences with loops of barbed wire at the top.
Dallas and Sabrine shared a loaded glance. “The Old Hall?” they said in unison.
“Wait,” Dallas said, chewing on her lip. “That doesn’t make any sense. Darien searched the Old Hall. There’s no way he wouldn’t have noticed these tunnels down here.”
Malakai walked up to the wall and tapped his knuckle against the glossy surface. “Not with this.” He was met with several confused stares, Max included. Since when was Delaney an annoying know-it-all? “If you’re looking at adamant while using the Sight,” the Reaper explained, “you can only see one side of it. The other is totally invisible. So if Darien was looking from that angle up there—” He pointed up through the earth. “He wouldn’t have seen it. It would’ve looked like nothing was down here.”
“Why don’t they use that on buildings?” Jewels wondered aloud.
“That would suck if they did,” Travis said. “None of us would have jobs anymore.” He smirked. “Time to do up the old résumé.”
“The material’s too rare,” Malakai explained to his sister, totally ignoring Travis. “There’s not enough of it, and besides, it’s expensive as shit.” He scanned the ceiling. “You think they’d be able to afford upgrading all the buildings in a city this size? No chance in hell.”
Max crossed the room, gesturing for Dallas to follow with the flashlight. Soon, the others were joining them as they gathered around the ledge of candles, photographs above it.
Dallas pointed the beam at a photograph of a group of people, staring stony-faced at the camera.
“The Phoenix Head Society,” he and Dallas murmured, voices melding together.
“Mother trucker,” Dallas muttered, pointing a finger at two faces in the center of the group. “That’s my mom and dad.”
“And there’s Erasmus,” Sabrine said, coming in at her left. In the photo, he was very young but easily recognizable. His hair was wavy, his glasses round.
“Yeah, that’s him alright,” Travis said. “The source of all our problems.”
Malakai said, “Wait just a goddamn minute.” He wasn’t the only one now looking at the woman in the center of the photo.
It was Cyra. Cyra, standing between Erasmus and Roark. She was obviously the heart of the group, the two dozen others in the photo situated around her like planets orbiting around the sun. She looked almost exactly the same as she did now, as if she hadn’t aged a day.
“Cyra was a member of the Phoenix Head Society?” Dallas whispered.
“Guess so,” Max replied.
“But…” Sabrine pointed between Cyra and Erasmus. “Why is Erasmus mortal again, and so…old? And Cyra’s not.”
No one had the answer to that.
“Roark and Taega,” Sabrine insisted, her words frantic—desperate for an explanation. “All of them are young still.” She shook her head, looking as lost as Max felt. “I don’t get it.”
They scanned the faces of the other members. Max didn’t recognize anyone else. Except... Was that—
